Choose Your Next SOA Implementation Step Carefully

In our interactions with Government Agencies and Fortune 2000 companies, two central messages are
becoming clear. First, many organizations began accepting a vendor marketing message in approximately the
2003 timeframe. This marketing message focused on how implementing an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) was the
path to achieving successful Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) implementations. In some cases, the marketing
message went as far as to say SOA = ESB. While an ESB certainly provides many capabilities useful to a successful
SOA implementation, it doesn’t provide all required capabilities. Some ESB products are also based on a vendor
proprietary implementation strategy that makes it difficult for the ESB to interoperate with other vendor SOA
infrastructure products. Second, in an environment where mergers and acquisitions (from both a business and
product vender perspective) are commonplace, multi-vendor product interoperability is an important aspect of
IT strategies and budgets. Few companies can afford to replace major portions of their IT infrastructure because
one division uses different vendor SOA products than another division. These budget pressures are placing an
increasing emphasis on multi-vendor product interoperability and federation of SOA capabilities across the
enterprise.

For organizations that have implemented an ESB but no other SOA infrastructure capabilities or have made large
investments in a multi-vendor environment, the essential question is “what is my next investment to increase
our overall SOA capability?” Answering this question wisely is very important because a wrong decision could
be very difficult and expensive to correct later. So what are the parameters that allow an organization to choose
their next step wisely? The best way to answer this is to start with a reference architecture. Simply stated, a
reference architecture is a template solution for an architecture that consists of a set of common (or commodity)
capabilities and their interfaces. The key phrase in this definition is common capabilities and their interfaces.
For a SOA infrastructure, example common capabilities are: metadata services, data services, security, service
registry/repository, enterprise service management, messaging, data/protocol adaptation, and orchestration.
Regarding the interfaces, there are essentially three ways to approach them.

1. They can be defined by product vendors. However, this typically leads to unique definitions and a
lack of interoperability with the interfaces provided by other vendor products.
2. They can be defined by your organization. However, this approach also typically leads to unique
definitions and a lack of interoperability with the interfaces provided by other products.
3. They can be defined by open standards bodies such as OASIS or WC3. Many of these standards exist
today, and they are commonly referred to as the WS-* standards. Essentially, these standards allow
for the specification of a highly reusable, web services based reference architecture that promotes
platform independence, data sharing, and multi-vendor product interoperability.

Open Standards offer a wise next-step strategy. The diagram below is a visualization of an open standards based
SOA Reference Architecture using standards from OASIS, W3C, DMTF, and others.

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 Metadata Services Service Registry, Repository, Enterprise Services
and Registry and Governance Management
[Product Choices 1..N] [Product Choices 1..M] [Product Choices 1..P]

Seros Web WS-Metadata

UDDI Compliant APIs WS-Management
Services Exchange

WS-UDDI

Services
ServicesConnection/Composition/Orchestration
Connection/Composition/OrchestrationFramework
Framework
(WSDL,
(WSDL,BPEL/Non-BPEL
BPEL/Non-BPELOrchestrations,
Orchestrations,Composite
CompositeServices,
Services,Web-Application,
Web-Application,etc.)
etc.)
[Product Choices 1..T]
[Product Choices 1..T]

WS- WS-Resource Standardized Data

WS-Security JSR-168 WSRP
Notification Framework Service Definitions

WS-Addressing
Security and Identity Portal Framework Data Services
Management [Product Choices 1..S] [Product Choices 1..T]
Messaging, Translation, and
[Product Choices 1..Q] Protocol Adaptation
[Product Choices 1..R]

XACML WS-Federation

LDAP/SAML
LDAP/SAML
XACML-Based [Product
[ProductChoices
Choices
Security 1..X]
1..X]
Policies

Open Standards Based Reference Architecture Diagram

The square boxes in the diagram are representative of the common (or commodity) SOA Infrastructure
capabilities required by a highly robust, enterprise SOA infrastructure implementation. By using the WS-* open
standards, (e.g., WS-Metadata Exchange, WS-Security, and WS-Management) an open standards based reference
architecture is achieved that provides interoperability in a multi-vendor environment. Thus, a high degree
of reuse is obtained and vendor lock-in is prevented. This characteristic is very important to enterprise SOA
implementations for five reasons:

1. It allows for the definition of enterprise level design patterns that specify how to perform
standardized integration and implementation of multiple vendors and/or open source products.
In the ideal case, the design pattern utilizes both the WS-* based machine-to-machine interfaces
as well as JSR-168/WSRP compliant portlets. Thus, both machine-to-machine and human user
interfaces are provided. Additionally, whenever possible, the portlets perform all interactions with
the backend vendor and/or open source products via the WS-* web services. In many cases, the JSR-
168/WSRP portlets also provide access to user interfaces provided by the vendor and/or open source
products. This type of design pattern approach is especially important when a heterogeneous set of
multi-vendor products is in use across multiple groups/divisions within an organization.
2. It provides the proper standards and web services mechanisms to enable reuse and federation
across multi-vendor and multiple SOA implementations.
3. It provides the proper standards and web services mechanisms to incrementally add the next SOA
infrastructure capability without creating a vendor lock-in situation.
4. It provides web services for data exchange utilizing data formats based on open standards such as
XML.

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 5. It provides a web services based approach to both design and runtime governance. Specifically, the
web services provided by the Services Registry/Repository component can be composed with the
web services provided by the Enterprise Services Management component. Thus, by using BPEL
orchestrations, composite web services, or a web application, design and runtime governance can
be efficiently implemented and consistently enforced.

Seros believes, as do a growing number of industry experts, that an open standards based reference architecture
is the foundation for enabling an agile SOA environment that meets the needs of the dynamically changing
business environment. Many Fortune 2000 companies along with Government Agencies the Department of
Defense are building such a blueprint with either internal or consulting resources. This approach allows your
organization to focus on providing SOA infrastructure as commodity capabilities accessible via standardized
interfaces across your enterprise. In this way, your next SOA step as well as specific vendor and/or open source
product choices can be made much more rationally. These choices will now align with your organizational
business objectives that could include driving down the overall cost of IT infrastructure. In fact, you will be
“choosing wisely” because you have taken large steps to avoid specific vendor/product lock-in while remaining
flexible to changes in the vendor/open source market place, technology, and underlying software platforms.
Ultimately, you will have made the wise decisions that are critically important to obtaining the business leverage
and return on investment a SOA foundation provides.

Seros has already implemented many of the capabilities shown in the Open Standards Based Reference
Architecture Diagram with a set of vendor and open source products. A simple representation of the Seros
solution approach and design pattern is shown in the diagram below. This diagram visualizes the concepts
described above and a highly cost effective approach for achieving the desired results. The Seros solutions can
be provided at a fraction of the cost and time your organization will invest to create this same capability. Give us
a call at 703-841-5977 to request a demonstration or obtain more information.

Two Types of Mission Service Interaction:

Web
Web Applications
Applications • Machine -to -Machine level interaction with the
and
and Human
Human User
User WS -* defined web services
Machine
Machine -to
-to-Machine
-Machine Interface
Interface • Human user interaction with the WS -* defined
Clients
Clients web services

Defined By:
• Organization for the Advancement of
WS
WS-*
-*Open
OpenStandards
Standards Interface
Interface Structured Information Standards (OASIS)
(SOA
(SOA InfrastructureCapability)
Infrastructure Capability) • World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
• Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF)

Example Seros Provided Brokers:

• Machine -to -Machine Messaging
Seros
Seros WS
WS-*
-*Broker
Broker • Enterprise Services Management
• Policy Definition and Provisioning
• Content Publishing and Searching

Example Product Providers:

SOA
SOAInfrastructure
Infrastructure
Product
… SOA
SOAInfrastructure
Infrastructure
Product
• JBoss and other Open Source Providers
• Progress Sonic, IBM, BEA/Oracle, etc.
Product 11 Product NN • Layer 7, F5 Big IP, Cisco, etc.
• Apache Lucene , Google Search Appliance, etc.

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To learn more about Seros, please visit us on the Web: www.seros.com.

For more information, please contact:

Spence Jeffries
950 N. Glebe Rd.
Suite 1100
Arlington, VA 22203
703.841.5977
FAX 703.908.9353
[email protected]

Copyright © Seros • All rights reserved • 703.841.5977 • www.seros.com